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John Carmack Leaves Meta

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Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#421

Post by meta_throwaway_ »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #352
adamsb6 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined back in 2014 and left this year. I feel like I got to enjoy a couple of years before the company started to lose its nimbleness. Feedback groups used to get responses from the people that actually built the things instead of contractors whose primary function is feedback group triage. Sometimes you could actually have an impact by giving feedback, and you could see others having those impacts as well. When I…

>I think Portal is a perfect example of how slow to adapt the company has become. It's a fantastic video conferencing device, certainly the best at its price point. We happened to enter the pandemic with this device already available for sale, but we completely failed to capitalize on it. Thanks for your insight, but the Portal failure shouldn't be surprising. There are a large number of people who would never want t…

>There are a large number of people who would never want to have a private conversation or meeting using Facebook

I wouldn't be surprised if Meta was the number one way people have private conversations on planet earth.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#422

Post by markeibes »

mathgladiator wrote: post #153
Arjuna wrote: post #111

”It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I…

He isn't alone. A core problem is that FB culture is way too positive and happy, and hard criticism is received poorly. The politics to get anything done if your name isn't Mark is borderline impossible. I left a year ago, and I've become beyond happy.

My name is Mark, should I apply then?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#423

Post by urthor »

lukemercado wrote: post #420
urthor wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With those big companies, commonly there simply isn't a productive way to walk the line. Saving face and preserving "decision making credibility" means that taking advice is simply not on the cards for a large portion of the middle management class.

> Saving face and preserving "decision making credibility" means that taking advice is simply not on the cards for a large portion of the middle management class. While I'm happy to admit that this construct may be true in practice; it is _deeply_ infuriating that so many people's calculus nets out in this manner. It's infuriating to me, primarily, because I simply don't understand. By my understanding, "decision mak…

Decision making credibility is simply not anchored in "being logically correct."

It's anchored in the ability to consider the needs of the tribe appropriately.

Leadership credibility in human society is mostly anchored via your track record of emphasizing with the needs of a Dunbar's number sized tribe.

Empathy, not logic, is the KPI our brains are tuned to. Empathetic leaders emphasize data collection, logical ones make decisions using that data. Evolution has optimized for empathy.

The core problem with large companies is the middle management buffer grows large enough that it forms a subculture which drives decision making.

Plus, institutions of 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, all have their "local" rules of detailed management know-how. Add it all up, and you have a problem that's just as thorny & knotty as any engineering problem. Requiring just as much detailed expertise.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#424

Post by verdenti »

mathgladiator wrote: post #153
Arjuna wrote: post #111

”It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I…

He isn't alone. A core problem is that FB culture is way too positive and happy, and hard criticism is received poorly. The politics to get anything done if your name isn't Mark is borderline impossible. I left a year ago, and I've become beyond happy.

No post body was provided.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#425

Post by brundolf »

dylan604 wrote: post #155
srajabi wrote: post #7

Basically Carmack is frustrated by: 1. Rate of progress on AR/VR at meta 2. People within Meta not "Giving a Dam!" / Poor decisions made within the org 3. Poor quality of the execution which I guess is related to #2 Relevant quote: "It pains me to hear people say that they don't even get their headset out to show off at the company because they know it's going to be a mess of charging and updating before they can mak…

This was my gripe about all console games. Real gamers that are daily users have their systems kept up to date, but I'm not one of those. I'm one of those that plays a few times a month, and only when I have nothing else to do. Because of the infrequent use of the console, I'm guaranteed to have to do an update on every use. The update alone cuts into the time allotted for gaming. So I play even less and less to the…

OT, but for consoles you just leave it in sleep-mode and it'll update things quietly throughout the day. It's more of a problem for desktops

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#426

Post by aix1 »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #376
solardev wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that how Google ended up with eight chat apps while Search gets worse and worse every year?

I’m willing to bet that that’s also how Google will be completely disrupted by an AI-first competitor. The execs will be too chicken to kill their current golden goose.

I am not totally sure what you mean by an AI-first competitor. Could you give a (hypothetical) example?

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#427

Post by Keyframe »

methodical wrote: post #238
worldsayshi wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you solve a few more problems with chatgpt it's going to become useful enough that people are going to stop caring so much about the AGI label. It's going to quack like a duck enough to change a lot of industries.

> "If you solve a few more problems" The amount of work done by these 7 words is incredible. ChatGPT is far from changing a "lot" of industries. Still pathetic at programming (which isn't its purpose, but is AlphaCode's purpose; which also sucks), use of it for copy writing is nullified since it seems Google will crack down on AI generated copy writing. DALL-E is also a nice party trick but far from being particularl…

My sweet dude, it's a prototype literally released as a CHAT bot to public to tinker with seventeen days ago.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#428

Post by khazhoux »

Arjuna wrote: post #111

”It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I…

> It is simply stunning that the seasoned direction and counsel that someone of John Carmack’s caliber is capable of delivering was not being followed.

This doesn't actually surprise me in the least bit, and that's not a criticism of either FB/Meta or Carmack. It's simply that after a couple of decades in industry, I now see that effective organizational leaders are exceedingly rare, and I've seen now many super-experts --legends in their fields-- join big companies and not find their footing.

I also don't really buy the "you gotta be good at cutthroat politics." I have plenty of examples across multiple top-tier companies, of senior leadership who were smart, thoughtful, effective... and still reasonable and compassionate.

I think it's simply that it's tough to move people, plain as that. And in Carmack's case, I will wager that his expertise and track record were not enough to get everyone to drop what they're doing and follow his lead. After all, there are many other legends at Meta too. And, there's an abundance of good ideas all fighting for limited mindshare and limited ability to act.

Re: John Carmack Leaves Meta

#429

Post by icoder »

khazhoux wrote: post #428
Arjuna wrote: post #111

”It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I'm evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I…

> It is simply stunning that the seasoned direction and counsel that someone of John Carmack’s caliber is capable of delivering was not being followed. This doesn't actually surprise me in the least bit, and that's not a criticism of either FB/Meta or Carmack. It's simply that after a couple of decades in industry, I now see that effective organizational leaders are exceedingly rare, and I've seen now many super-expe…

Someone on Reddit coined the term 'institutional inertia', which probably applies here too.
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